


tell me you love me just one (more) time

by wafflesofdoom



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Established Relationship, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 08:59:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11227659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflesofdoom/pseuds/wafflesofdoom
Summary: aaron had wished for robert to die once, as he'd knelt outside the woolpack, trying to stem the blood flowing from the bullet hole in his chest. now he was doing it all over again, robert's life in his hands as his husband bled out in the dirt at the side of the road.an entirely inaccurate fic about robert being the one who gets stabbed next week.





	tell me you love me just one (more) time

Aaron doesn’t really remember how it happened.

One minute, they were riding high on their win over Ross, and the next they were face to face with drug dealers. They should have left, there and then, they should have gotten into the car and _drove_ , as far away from Ross, and Finn, and the dealers, but they didn’t.

No, they didn’t.

It was some sort of twisted loyalty to the brothers, maybe, a sense of obligation to their neighbours. Or maybe it was just something innately good, in the two of them, that they’d stayed, tried to calm the situation.

It’s cliche, Aaron knows, but it was all a blur. One second, they were fighting, _yelling_ , Aaron’s heart in his mouth as he held tightly to Robert’s elbow, torn between getting back into the car and _running_ , and wanting to stop it before it got out of hand, and the next he was on his knees in a country lane, trying to stop his husband from bleeding out in the dirt.

He’d been here before.

Aaron would never forget the night Robert was shot. The _terror_ of it all, the sickening fear he’d felt in his stomach as he’d knelt, pressing a cardigan to an open wound on Robert’s chest.

He’d hated him then. God, Aaron had hated him then. Every breath Robert took, every word that had fallen from Robert’s smarmy mouth, he’d hated it all, hated every inch of Robert fucking Sugden, the one person that had always found a way to worm his way back into Aaron’s life.

He’d almost wanted him to die, that night by the Woolpack.

Maybe - maybe it made Aaron a terrible person, to admit it, but at least he was honest. He’d hated Robert then, for hurting him, for making him feel as though he wasn’t worth it, that he wasn’t worth being someone first choice.

Aaron had carried that hatred, the pain, every day since the reveal.

Every second of every day, he hated Robert.

Robert dying that night, well - Aaron had thought it would be the end of his pain. It would have been a way out, a way of moving on, a way of falling out of love with Robert, something Aaron knew, even then, he’d never be able to do.

But if he’d died that night, Aaron would never have been able to love Robert the way he did now, _wholeheartedly_ , _absolutely_ , he’d never have gotten to be married to him, to build a life with Robert.

Aaron couldn’t imagine, losing Robert now.

And yet here he was, pressing a hoodie to an open wound on Robert’s stomach, desperately trying to stem the oozing blood flow.

It felt too familiar.

It felt like the _end_.

“Robert, t-talk to me,” Aaron said desperately, his voice shaking as he spoke. “Hey, Robert, talk to me.”

Robert’s face was screwed up in pain as Aaron pressed against the wound, his skin deathly pale. “Hurts,” he mumbled, his breath coming in ragged gasps. “Aaron, it hurts.”

“I know, I know,” Aaron desperately wanted to run a hand through Robert’s hair, to comfort him the way he knew how, his husband the more tactile one of the two of them, the one who needed forehead kisses and lingering hugs.

But he couldn’t move his hands.

If he moved his hands, Robert would die.

Aaron wanted to be sick, as he looked down at Robert’s stomach. Blood was soaking through Aaron’s hoodie, staining the grey material a horrific red colour. It was too thin, it wasn’t enough -

“Give me your jacket,” Aaron demanded, looking over his shoulder at Ross. “ **Now** , Ross.”

Ross was stripping in seconds, dropping to his knees to add the jacket to Aaron’s hoodie, Aaron moving blood soaked hands to add extra pressure to the wound. “Finn is seeing where the ambulance is,”

Aaron ignored him, ignored him for long enough that Ross got the message, moving to stand next to his brother. “Come on Robert, keep your eyes open, eh?” he nudged, desperation clear in his voice.

Robert squinted at Aaron, his blue eyes swimming with tears. “I don’t want to die,” he admitted, his voice childlike as he spoke, ever the broken little boy Robert always was, when he was scared.

“You’re not going to die, Robert,” Aaron shook his head, refusing to even think of the prospect. Loosing Robert now, now they had a chance at being really happy? It wasn’t worth thinking about.

Aaron wouldn’t survive it.

“My luck’s got to run out someday,” Robert said, choking out a pained groan, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“I reckon you and I are owed a bit of luck, actually,” Aaron said, knowing he was going to be talking utter nonsense now, trying to fill the silence with more than _fear_ , more than sheer terror.

“Yeah?”

Aaron nodded, trying to keep his eyes on Robert’s face, not on his blood covered torso, the blood staining Aaron’s shaking hands. “We’ve not had it easy, have we?” he continued. “We’ve never been easy, you and me. It’s always been - it’s always been one disaster after another.”

“Mostly my fault,” Robert said, eyes unfocused as he looked at Aaron, glassy with tears. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” Aaron tried to shrug Robert’s apologies off, figuring out exactly what he was trying to do in a split second.

“I’m sorry for always hurting you so much,” Robert said, pausing to cough, and retch, clearly in the most horrendous pain. “I don’t deserve you.”

_You do._

_You deserve me._

_You make me happy._

_Happier than I ever thought I could be._

“Don’t you dare say goodbye to me, Robert,” Aaron couldn’t stop his own tears now, cheeks on fire as he spoke.

_I can’t take you saying goodbye to me too._

“I - I just want you to know,” Robert said, deathly pale now, so pale that it set Aaron’s heart on edge, had his stomach in knots. “In case I don’t get the chance to say it all later.”

“You will,” Aaron shook his head, brushing his nose against the material of his t-shirt, trying to clear the worst of the snot, and the tears from his face, desperately trying to hold himself together. “You promised me years, Robert. You said you’d stick around until you were eighty or summat.”

Robert gave a tired grin, an attempt at a laugh. “I did,” he agreed, stopping mid sentence to take a few shaky breaths, his breathing sounding thick, as though the blood was rising up his throat now. “But I-“

“Robert,” Aaron practically growled. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to you say goodbye to me, okay? I can’t - I can’t hear it.”

“ _Please,_ Aaron,” Robert sounded so desperate, upset beyond words as he spoke, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I don’t want to die without you knowing.”

“I _know_.” Aaron said, almost surprised at the confidence in his voice. “I know, Robert, I promise you, I know. You don’t have to prove anything to me, yeah? Because I know. Just - save your energy until the ambulance gets here.”

“I thought I’d spend the rest of my life hiding a part of myself,” Robert said, as though he hadn’t heard a word, heard any of what Aaron had said, as though he hadn’t heard his pleas. “But then I met you.”

“And I changed everything, I know,” Aaron pressed harder on the wound, the blood seemingly never-endless, soaking through the hoodie, soaking into Aaron’s jeans, staining his skin.

“You make me so happy,” Robert hummed, his pauses between words getting longer now, as though he was losing the strength to speak. “I love you so much, you know that?”

“I know, I told you I know,” Aaron felt like he was going to be sick.

He couldn’t do this.

He couldn’t take another goodbye.

“I’m sorry for hurting you,” Robert said, hiccuping out a sob. “I’m so sorry for what I did, Aaron.”

“I know you are,” Aaron shook his head. “I forgave you. I _forgive_ you, I do. I forgive you, Robert, completely forgive you for it - for everything.”

“You sayin’ that because I’m dying?”

“You’re not dying,” Aaron pressed a little too hard, hating the wince that appeared on Robert’s face, the expression of hurt that furrowed his brow. “Don’t be an idiot.”

“Always been an idiot.”

“I won’t argue that one,” Aaron tried to joke. Robert looked as though he was properly losing consciousness now, drifting in and out of their conversation in a way that scared the life out of Aaron.

He was dying, wasn’t he?

Aaron was no doctor, he wasn’t sure, not really.

But this felt a lot like the end.

“Robert?”

“Just resting my eyes,” Robert tried to joke. “Have a lot to say, you know.”

“You can tell me everything when you wake up in hospital,” Aaron shook his head. “Eh, they’ll be giving us a room of our own, at Hotten General, the rate we’re going.”

“Couldn’t handle it, last time,” Robert mumbled. “Losing you.”

“You didn’t lose me,” Aaron shook his head, desperately looking around the deathly quite country lane, wishing for sirens, hoping to catch a glimpse of some flashing blue lights and the hope of _rescue_. “I’m here, I pulled through, so you’ve go to do the same for me now.”

“Hurts though.”

Aaron squeezed his eyes shut, counting slowly to ten in his head, trying to calm himself down. If he - if he had a panic attack now, right now, when Robert needed him the most, he’d never forgive himself.

_Where was the fucking ambulance?_

“Tell me you love me,” Robert demanded quietly, unfocused eyes on Aaron again, as though he was drinking every last inch of his face in.

“Don’t act like this is goodbye,” Aaron countered, angry now.

He wasn’t going to let Robert say goodbye.

Not like this.

Not at the side of the road, lying in the dirt.

No.

Robert Sugden deserved more than that. He - he deserved a quiet goodbye, at the end of a long, happy life. A long, happy life he’d spent with Aaron, the two of them having had grown old together, two crotchety old men who’d defied all the odds and stayed together forever.

That was how they were both going to go out, old and grey and at the end of a life lived together.

It couldn’t happen like this, five (mostly unhappy) months into their marriage.

It couldn’t happen before they’d made a real go of it, them.

It **_couldn’t_**.

“Tell me you love me,” Robert repeated, begging now.

“I’ll tell you when you wake up in hospital you git,” Aaron shook his head, the finality of Robert’s request too much for him, making his heart beat out of his chest.

“Please, Aaron, I just - I n-need to hear it.”

How could Aaron refuse him when he was asking like this, quiet and sad and broken, as though he’d accepted this was the end?

“I love you,” Aaron breathed, keeping pressure on Robert’s stomach as he leaned forward slightly, so he was closer to Robert’s face, lips at the corner of Robert’s mouth. “I love you, so - hold on for me.”

Robert had a peaceful smile on his face now. “Sounds better every time,” he mumbled, eyes shut again, but his furrowed brow gone.

It felt too final.

“It’ll sound even better when we’re back home,” Aaron said. “In our bed. I’ll - I’ll even make you breakfast in bed, yeah? I promise.”

“Eggy soldiers.”

Aaron couldn’t help but let out at laugh at Robert’s childish comment. “Eggy soldiers and a cup of tea, I promise,” he nodded, catching a glimpse of a blue light flashing in the distance. “Robert, the ambulance is here. I told ya, it’s going to be fine.”

Robert still had that peaceful, easy smile on his face. “S’ok, doesn’t hurt,” he said, blinking at Aaron.

Aaron dug his hands into the wound, desperately hoping for a reaction.

“Tell me you love me,” Robert asked again, breathing still coming in short gasps, his expression peaceful but his breathing so indicative of how bad things really were, hitched, unsteady gasps as though he was desperate to try and suck in some air.

“I love you,” Aaron didn’t argue this time, the ambulance siren blaring now, giving him hope. “I love you so much, Robert. Just, hold on a few seconds longer, please? Just hold on for me.”

Robert didn’t reply.

“Robert? Robert, please, please don’t go,” Aaron sobbed out, his tears unstoppable now.

He couldn’t lose him.

Aaron couldn’t lose him like this, at the side of the road - in the dirt.

Aaron couldn’t lose him at all.

Not today, or tomorrow, or _ever._

And certainly not now, not when they were finally getting their chance to be happy.

_I love you._

_Just hold on, Robert._

**_Please_ ** _._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
